Plan Human Resource Management

00:02 Hello and welcome.

00:03 This module will focus on the plan human resource management process from the PMBOK guide. The difficulty is low and the memorization required and exam importance are both rated as medium.

00:19 The particular domain task that this process helps us to understand better is Planning Task five, which says develop the Human Resource Management Plan by defining the roles and responsibilities of the project team members in order to create a project organizational structure and provide guidance regarding how resources will be assigned and managed.

00:49 The key themes of this process are to develop a plan, particularly a human resource management plan, to help guide our human resource management activities.

01:03 This human resource management plan that we do produce will, of course, be part of our overall project management plan.

01:13 The particular inputs that we may find useful in developing our human resource management plan are the project management plan and all the other relevant plans in it and the baselines they may impact on how we want to manage our people.

01:31 As an aside, I've never really liked the term human resources.

01:35 It sounds too robotic.

01:36 I like the word people a little better, but the exam will expect you to focus on human resource management.

01:43 The other useful input that we may want to use our activity resource requirements.

01:51 Can you remember where those are an output from? Well, the activity resource requirements are an output from estimate activity resources, which was one of the time management knowledge area processes.

02:07 Here, they used as an input, though, because they specify our activities and the resources, the people, the skills, the experience that we need to complete each of those activities.

02:19 So it's a very useful input to have in the development of our human resource management plan. The other two inputs that we may find useful.

02:29 Enterprise environmental factors, particularly in this instance, things like employment conditions and legislation that we need to comply with . Organizational process assets such as our project management methodology and a blank template for a plan if we've got it, may be useful inputs as well. The particular tools and techniques that we may find useful in the development of our human resource management plan include the following organization charts and position descriptions.

03:04 I'm going to show you an example of these in just a moment.

03:08 Networking networking is exactly what it says it is in order to put together your human resource management plan.

03:16 You will probably need to network or talk and build relationships with functional managers in other areas of your organization, colleagues, other people from the organization to help you put together your human resource management plan that will be approved.

03:34 You're also going to need to have an understanding of organizational theory, and we'll cover some of those now and we'll cover some of them in another module with human resource management.

03:45 Of course, you are an expert.

03:47 Your project, team members of experts and the people you're going to use are experts, so you may want to consult them and use expert judgment as a tool or technique.

03:56 And a great way to get information from experts or simply to build team morale is to have meetings that are, well, run.

04:06 Here are some key terms and tools and techniques you need to know.

04:09 The first one is an organizational chart.

04:13 This is a representation of the organization and the hierarchies and reporting lines that exist within it.

04:20 You've probably got one in the organization you work in at the moment.

04:23 It's the Chat, which points out the CEO or general manager at the top, the managers underneath that person who report to that person.

04:33 The team leads and the team members shows the hierarchy and reporting lines.

04:38 It's called an organizational breakdown structure, and it's one of four breakdown structures mentioned in the PMBOK guide.

04:45 The other three being the work breakdown structure, the resource breakdown structure and the risk breakdown structure.

04:52 The thing they all have in common as a breakdown structure.

04:56 They're all a graphical decomposition of a higher level concept.

05:03 You may also want to put together a responsibility assignment matrix, and I'll show you an example of a RACI, R-A-C-I Chat in just a moment.

05:13 And I'll also show you an example of a resource histogram.

05:18 So let's take a look at some of these.

05:20 First up, the organizational breakdown structure.

05:24 In this instance, though, we've taken it and we've applied it to the project.

05:28 So the project manager is at the top.

05:31 And those people reporting to the project manager are represented lower down that chart. Well, you may also want a responsibility assignment matrix.

05:42 Now, one of the key things that you need to remember for the exam and there will be questions on this.

05:49 As it is assumed that every team member has a clearly defined role and responsibility in the project.

05:58 We remove ambiguity about who does what, who's responsible for what. By documenting it very completely, and I'll show you an example of one of those in just a moment. Of course, a position description or job description is all of this information presented and text oriented format, and the chances are you signed one of these when you began your current role.

06:22 It outlined all of the experience required what your responsibilities were, were your authority and possibly even the amount of pay you were getting.

06:33 Here's an example of a specific type of responsibility assignment matrix.

06:38 This one's called a RACI Chat R-A-C-I: standing for responsible, accountable consult and informed.

06:48 I've seen variations RESCI, R-E-S-C-I, with the 'S' being used to indicate stakeholder or support.

06:56 I've also seen organizations simply use an 'R' and a chart to indicate who's responsible and who's accountable.

07:03 So let's take a look at this chart.

07:08 Let's take a look at who I would hold accountable for design work, well, that would be Ben.

07:16 Carlos is responsible for the design work, but Ben would be held accountable for it.

07:21 Betty and Ted are to be consulted on the design work and earn is to be informed of the design work.

07:28 So again, the intent with this particular form of responsibility assignment matrix is to remove any ambiguity at all about roles and responsibilities on a project.

07:40 It will be assumed in the exam that you do that for all of your projects.

07:46 A resource histogram.

07:47 Well, that's just a nice way of mapping out our resource needs over the life of the project. Here we've got a lot of people needed at the beginning of the project.

07:56 We've got a period towards the end where we don't need many people at all.

08:00 And then towards the end, we need people again.

08:04 But because it's not the most efficient way to use our resources, we may choose to use resource leveling here.

08:11 We looked at resource leveling more in depth during the developed schedule process if you want to revisit it there.

08:20 The types of organizations now it's important for the exam that you understand the three different types of organizations that exist, particularly the power of the project manager and each of them a functional organization is an organization that is organized by business unit or function.

08:40 So you'll have a design function headed by a general manager of design.

08:45 You'll have a build function headed by a general manager of build.

08:49 You'll have a test function headed by a general manager of test.

08:53 Now, the difficulty for a project manager trying to take staff from each of those functional areas is that the functional manager still has their performance metrics to meet each year.

09:05 And when you come to them and say, I want that staff member to work on my project, they may say no. In which case you've got some serious negotiations to contend with, and you may not get the people you want when you want them.

09:19 So in a functional organization, the power to control resources, even budgets and timelines generally rests with the functional manager. The type of organization most project managers would love to work in is a fully projectized organization.

09:38 And this is an organization that organizes itself by the projects it does.

09:42 And at the heat of it is a project manager whose full time and is all powerful, has all the responsibility and all the authority and the staff on that project only work on that project, and they report directly to the project manager.

09:58 That's a project sized organization.

10:00 The power and responsibility and authority are totally with the project manager in the exam, though you will probably be asked about a matrix form of organization.

10:13 This is a functional organization remember organized by functional area, which routinely and often does projects across the organization and is used to having a project manager take staff from different functional areas.

10:30 The exam questions will probably ask you to determine whether the scenario you are presented with represents a weak, balanced or strong form of Matrix organization.

10:43 A weak matrix organization means the power is with the functional manager, not the project manager.

10:51 Hence, why it's called a weak matrix form of organization.

10:55 A balanced matrix means that the functional manager and the project manager have balanced power.

11:04 A strong matrix organization means most of the power is with the project manager, not the functional manager.

11:11 So the project manager would control the budget and be able to get the resources when they need them. So remember that weak, balanced or strong depends on the level of a project manager has in relation to the functional manager.

11:28 Let's take a closer look at this because there will be a question at least one question in the exam on this topic.

11:34 Here we can see for a functional organization, a project manager's authority is little or nonexistent.

11:41 They don't get the resources they want when they want them.

11:44 The functional manager probably controls the budget, and the project manager's role may be part time same as the project management administrative staff if they exist. We have the three different forms of Matrix organization, and you can see moving from week over to strong matrix forms, the power shifts from the functional manager.

12:07 To the project manager.

12:10 And then obviously, with a projectized organization, the project manager is effectively the general manager of a project in that instance.

12:18 And their authority and power and responsibility is total as well. The particular outputs that we may choose to produce are the human resource management plan. Now the Human Resource Management Plan is the single output here, and it sets out how are we going to figure out who we need on the project? Once we've figured that out, how we're going to get them.

12:47 Once we've got them, how we're going to manage them.

12:51 And one of the key elements of successful human resource management is to take a team of individuals and turn them into a high performing team. The Human Resource Management Plan will also tell us how we're going to assess and provide feedback and provide training and ultimately approve the project team. So in summary.

13:15 The plan human resource management process has been all about creating a human resource management plan to guide all of our project personnel recruitment, retention, reward recognition and release work.

13:30 In fact, that's one of the ways that I remember it, the Five Rs, recruitment, retention, reward recognition and release that may help you remember what human resource management is all about. Thank you.

13:47 This has been an introduction and an overview to the planned human resource management process of the PMBOK guide.